In the event of death, the heirs would not have access to Safety Deposit boxes at the local Bank and Trust.

As soon as an Executor or Administrator is appointed, he/she will be allowed to access a safety deposit box. This can be done fairly quickly (a few days, usually), if the person has a copy of the will in hand (so the will should not be kept in the safety deposit box). He/she will also need the key, otherwise the lock will have to be drilled at considerable expense.

A home safe for document should also be water tight. A flood (from a broken pipe, etc.) is more likely than fire, and fire is often accompanied by lots of water being dumped on the burning area.

My safe is rather huge and bought it about 10 years ago. It was a gun show special from a local dealer, made in the USA, and had a very high fire rating.
Just as a point of interest, the dealer no longer carries that brand of safe because they switched manufacturing to Mexico and the safe does not have the same integrity.

Anyway, back on point, I bought a small portable safe with a very high fire rating and keep my important papers, passports, cash, and other like items in that safe which sits on the bottom of my big safe.

In essence, I have a safe within a safe and feel that should give me adequate protection from any fire. The big safe sits in a corner with cement walls on two sides so unless a gasoline tanker takes a detour thru my house, my important papers, and hopefully my guns, magazines, and the other stuff will remain unscathed in the event of a fire.

Further, the safe is anchored 9" into a cement slab and I have a motion detector and infrared sensor guarding the safe at all times when I have exited my premises. Then of course there is my four legged, take 'em apart canine early warning system that would scare just about anyone that comes within a whiff's distance of the house.

__________________
45Gunner
May the Schwartz Be With You.
NRA Instructor
NRA Life Member

A safe rated at 1200 degrees at 60 minutes means that under those conditions, your items will not burn (could be ruined however pending the item). You can add extra protection w/ pouches or material in the safe to increase the protection. I live in the suburbs and have the safe in an area on concrete flooring that should be managed quickly since there isn't much there that will burn by the time the 5 minutes it takes for fire response by big fire engines. I was told by different safe companies to get at least a 60 minute rating at 1200 degrees. Firemen didn't have much to say other than we just put the fire out and have no idea if the materials in the safe made it or not.

My AMSEC BF6030 has some impressive fire ratings and yet, I am not completely relying on it. Note, the safe within a safe. My documents are in a fire safe, key attached, within my AMSEC safe. This is something I read about in a http://www.6mmbr.com/gunsafes.html Gun Safe Buyer's Guide. I noted also in the buyer's guide that the picture they used of a safe that survived a house fire was in fact an AMSEC safe.

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